Last night I dreamed in fox:
crickets millipede vole pups
crunch of skull and brain meat
big moon above the trees
I knew car
I had told car to my kits
in our dark den
and of the man river that moves
through the woods
car was the other side of the bend
grouse eggs the other side of the road
I stepped out and the light closed in
I woke before it hit
alone in our bed,
a drag of headlights
smearing the wall.
I staggered through the house,
down the hall I’ve come to know
in footsteps, fingertips.
In the bathroom I kept the light off,
stared into the blue glass
lit by a big moon
behind my toothbrush,
the half-empty holder
where yours isn’t anymore.
crickets millipede vole pups
crunch of skull and brain meat
big moon above the trees
I knew car
I had told car to my kits
in our dark den
and of the man river that moves
through the woods
car was the other side of the bend
grouse eggs the other side of the road
I stepped out and the light closed in
I woke before it hit
alone in our bed,
a drag of headlights
smearing the wall.
I staggered through the house,
down the hall I’ve come to know
in footsteps, fingertips.
In the bathroom I kept the light off,
stared into the blue glass
lit by a big moon
behind my toothbrush,
the half-empty holder
where yours isn’t anymore.
Mariah is a poet from Oxford, UK. She’s the author of the novel-in-sonnets the love i do to you which was shortlisted for the Melita Hume Prize and won the AM Heath Prize. She is currently the Jacqueline Bardsley Poet-in-Residence at Homerton College, The University of Cambridge.